Ireland thrash England to christen Croke Park
Saturday, 24 Feb 2007 19:59
Ronan O'Gara orchestrated a historic win
After losing to France in their first-ever game at Croke Park, Ireland made amends with a 43-13 victory over England in front of a capacity crowd.
A deceptively-tight opening quarter saw opposing fly-halves Ronan O'Gara and Jonny Wilkinson trade penalties with the Munster man landing three to put his side 9-3 in front after 25 minutes.
England's indiscipline then gave the home side numerical advantage on the pitch as well as on the scoreboard as Danny Grewcock was sent to the sin-bin for a blatant piece of foul play.
A man down, England's backs were immediately struggling against their Irish superiors and, without the same degree of cover defence to support them, they were twice breached before the interval.
Girvan Dempsey's surging run took him clear of a threadbare England defence after quick hands from Brian O'Driscoll and Gordon D'Arcy for the first.
A few minutes later Shane Horgan cut in on an angle that left all but Mathew Tait in the England defence rooted to the spot, but from the following breakdown flanker David Wallace steamrollered over Phil Vickery to put his side 23-3 up at the break.
Brian Ashton sent young Wasps flanker Tom Rees into the fray for the second half and his introduction coincided with England's strongest phase of the match.
Dave Strettle slipped in at the corner on his debut with Wilkinson adding the conversion and a penalty in a burst of ten unanswered points.
But Ireland showed that they still had the ability to stretch away from the visitors and after O'Gara had stopped the rot with a simple penalty, Horgan claimed one of his stratospheric cross-field kicks over the top of Josh Lewsey to score an overdue try and make it 36-13.
The closing minutes saw scrum-half Isaac Boss snap onto an interception and skate in under the posts to add further polish to the scoreline.